Lincoln's Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words

Lincoln's Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words
Average customer rating:

Words that moved a nation

First-rate work

A Scholarly Analysis readable by Anyone

insightful

A wonderful read, and contains important material on what Lincoln actually wrote and said and why.

Lincoln's Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words
Douglas L. Wilson
Manufacturer: Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Presidents & Heads of State | Leaders & Notable People | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
General | Civil War | United States | Historical | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Rhetoric | Words & Language | Reference | Subjects | Books
General | Civil War | United States | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

The Gettysburg Gospel: The Lincoln Speech That Nobody Knows

Honor's Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney: Slavery, Secession, and the President's War Powers

This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War

Mr. Lincoln's T-Mails: The Untold Story of How Abraham Lincoln Used the Telegraph to Win the Civil War

ASIN: 1400040396
Release Date: 2006-11-14

Book Description

Abraham Lincoln now occupies an unparalleled place in American history, but when he was first elected president, a skeptical writer asked, “Who will write this ignorant man’s state papers?” Literary ability was, indeed, the last thing the public expected from the folksy, self-educated “rail-splitter,” but the forceful qualities of Lincoln’s writing eventually surprised his supporters and confounded his many critics. Since his assassination in 1865, no American’s words have become more familiar or more admired, and their enduring power has established him as one of our greatest writers. Now, in a groundbreaking study, the distinguished Lincoln scholar Douglas L. Wilson demonstrates that exploring Lincoln’s presidential writing provides a window onto his presidency and a key to his accomplishments.

Lincoln’s Sword tells the story of how Lincoln developed his writing skills, how they served him for a time as a hidden presidential asset, how it gradually became clear that he possessed a formidable literary talent, and it reveals how writing came to play an increasingly important role in his presidency. “By the time he came to write the Gettysburg Address,” Wilson says, “Lincoln was attempting to help put the horrific carnage of the Civil War in a positive light, and at the same time to do it in a way that would have constructive implications for the future. By the time he came to write the Second Inaugural Address, fifteen months later, he was quite consciously in the business of interpreting the war and its deeper meaning, not just for his contemporaries but for what he elsewhere called the ‘vast future.’ ”

Illustrated with reproductions of Lincoln’s original manuscripts, Lincoln’s Sword affords an unprecedented look at a distinctively American writer.

Customer Reviews:

Words that moved a nation.......2007-08-05

Author Douglas L. Wilson once again hits the bull's-eye, this time with a painstaking study of Lincoln's rhetoric (the President's personal "sword"). This book should appeal not only to persons interested in the Great Emancipator, but to those interested in the craft of writing. Wilson takes us step-by-step through the process Lincoln used to hone some of his most famous statements, a journey revealing principles of clear writing. Wilson shows that Lincoln's clarity of expression wasn't effortless, but resulted from hard work.

First-rate work.......2007-06-02

Bold in concept and careful in execution, this work is a gem. Lincoln's constant revising, his sense of what was appropriate in given situations, and his surging command of the language over decades impress the reader. Wilson's understanding of the context of Lincoln's deployment of language is impressive. Cautiously revisionist.

A Scholarly Analysis readable by Anyone.......2007-05-30

Lincoln's Sword illuminates the power and clarity of Lincoln's words. Even if the reader is not a Lincoln devotee or scholar, this book's treatment of Lincoln's speeches are clear, concise and pleasureable. This is a book that anyone would enjoy reading.

insightful.......2007-05-07

well worth the read to gain insight into an often little understood man. the depth of the writing gives testimony to the depth of the man. read it and learn - not just about lincoln - but also how to use communications to move people towards your goals.

A wonderful read, and contains important material on what Lincoln actually wrote and said and why........2007-02-09

Lincoln has become one of those tests where someone can tell you their thoughts about him and you can often tell where they are on any number of issues. The problem is that much of what people think they know about Lincoln is only a bumper sticker or sound byte version of what went on. We try to judge Lincoln (and most of our great historical figures) by our lights rather than seeing him in the context of his own time. Of course, it takes some work to learn what happened and why rather than wringing our hands over, say, the suspension of habeas corpus.

This excellent book can be a great contribution to your education about the real Abraham Lincoln and how he conducted himself as President. He came into office with the elite dismissing him as crude and hopelessly unsophisticated. This book shows us how carefully he worked on his public speeches and the letters and articles that were published during his time in office.

Sometimes we forget that by the time Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861 that the movement for secession was well underway and the firing on Fort Sumter was on April 12, 1861, just a few weeks later. His second inaugural address was given on March 4, 1865, Lee's Surrender at Appomattox was on April 9th, and Lincoln was shot by Booth on April 14th. He died the next day. So, his entire service as President was bounded by that terrible war.

Douglas Wilson takes several of the addresses and letters central to Lincoln's Presidency and shows us what the extant drafts reveal to us about Lincoln's purposes, approach, and the political realities he faced. He also brings in testimony by those who were involved with those documents, worked with Lincoln, and contemporaries who wrote about them. It is all quite fascinating, especially because it is focused on what was happening and what was thought at the time rather than imposing anachronistic views from our day on those events. However, Wilson does spend some time examining what some contemporary critics have said about these documents and events. For example, he uses a few apt quotes from Garry Wills' wonderful book (one you may want to read) on the Gettysburg address because they are among the best things said about it in our time.

While other documents are considered in passing, the central documents examined in this book are: Lincoln's farewell from Springfield for Washington, his First Inaugural, the July 4, 1861 address, the Emancipation Proclamation (and its antecedents), a letter to Greeley, the Corning letter, the Gettysburg Address, and the Second Inaugural.

I would suggest that you get a copy of Lincoln's addresses or get them from the Web and read the documents along with the book (most are not provided in the book because of their length and their wide availability). I recommend the two volume set of Lincoln's "Speeches and Writings" from the Library of America (only the second volume is needed for this book). Reading what Lincoln actually wrote and said is quite edifying because one learns first hand what he said and did rather than being the prisoner of what others selectively provide you to promote their own agenda.

This is a great read, is very informative, and I strongly recommend it to you as part of your self education on what American History really is.

Foundation ActionScript for Flash 8 (Foundation)

Average customer rating:

A Great ActionScript Book By Designers For Designers
Well structured, No boring Jargon and Everything you need in one book.
Excellent Beginner ActionScript Guide
Great Book for Beginner on up ....
A diamond amongst coal.

Foundation ActionScript for Flash 8 (Foundation)
Sham Bhangal , Kristian Besley , and David Powers
Manufacturer: friends of ED
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Programming | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Graphic Design | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Software | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

All Deals | Blowout Books | Stores | Books

Computers & Internet | Blowout Books | Stores | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Computers & Internet | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Foundation ActionScript Animation: Making Things Move! (Foundation)
Foundation Flash 8 (Foundation)
Object-Oriented ActionScript For Flash 8
Macromedia Flash 8 @work: Projects and Techniques to Get the Job Done (@Work)
Flash 8 ActionScript Bible

Accessories:

Workflow in the 2007 Microsoft Office System
Pro C# with .NET 3.0, Special Edition (Pro)
Microsoft SharePoint: Building Office 2007 Solutions in C# 2005 (Expert's Voice in Sharepoint)

ASIN: 1590596188

Book Description

ActionScript is the native scripting language of Flash. ActionScript knowledge is essential within the world of Flash design and development, as Flash remains a leading tool for cutting-edge interactive design and development. ActionScript is what gives Flash its power, but with that power comes a certain level of complexity, which can be intimidating. This beginners book, significantly updated since the last edition, covers all of the basics of ActionScript using the latest version of Flash, Flash 8. The skills acquired by working through this book will enable you to move on to more advanced friends of ED books such as Foundation PHP 5 for Flash, Foundation ActionScript Animation or Foundation XML for Flash. This book contains all you need to understand and make use of ActionScript, and to have some fun while learning. The Foundation series teaching style is ideal if youre a non-programmer who wants to learn Flash programming quickly and thoroughly. The authors teach the basics, and provide you an all-around proficiency in ActionScript, as well as Flash components within Flash 8. Youll gain the practical skills to build ActionScript based Flash projects, including making initial design decisions, structuring code, and testing. An ongoing case study means that by the end of the book, youll have constructed a cutting-edge Flash site to showcase your newly learned skills. Summary of Contents:

Chapter 1 Interactive Flash
Chapter 2 Making Plans
Chapter 3 Movies That Remember
Chapter 4 Movies That Decide for Themselves
Chapter 5 More Power, Less Script
Chapter 6 Movies That Remember How to Do Things
Chapter 7 Objects and Classes
Chapter 8 Objects on the Stage
Chapter 9 Reusable Code and Realistic Movement
Chapter 10 Games and Sprites
Chapter 11 Drawing API
Chapter 12 Adding Sound to Flash
Chapter 13 Loading Dynamic Data with XML
Chapter 14 Finishing the Futuremedia Case Study
Chapter 15 Advanced ActionScript: Components and Classes

Customer Reviews:

A Great ActionScript Book By Designers For Designers.......2007-07-24

This is a great book for the designer interested in getting deeper into Flash through ActionScript 2.0. Primarily centered around web-based projects, with the occasional game project, Sham et al. lead the reader through basic programming fundamentals from a designer perspective. The reader is assumed to be mildly frightened by looking at code, but still interested in learing it. I can sympathize that many designers could be in this boat.

The language of the book is very non-technical and it's presented in a light-hearted manner to ease you into some difficult concepts. The authors do a great job of tricking you into getting excited about programming. So if you're a web designer who has always been impressed by what programmers can do, but were a little uncomfortable trying to just jump in on your own, this is THE book for you.

I have two warnings and one critique.

The first warning is that this is a Flash 8 book - hence ActionScript 2.0. The second warning is that almost all the projects in the book are web-based instead of game-based. Now it's Flash, so it kind of comes with the territory, and there is a full chapter devoted to making a game. However, the perfect book for me would be this exact same book, but centered almost completely around game-based projects. If you're strictly looking for that, this book isn't for you. I don't care as much, and there's still a lot to learn, so I don't regret purchasing the book.

My critique is regarding the book-long project where you make a website that uses ActionScript (the Futuremedia site). It's a case study where you can apply some of what you've learned to a "real" project. My problem with it is that you don't seem to learn a whole lot about ActionScripting by going through it. The authors (or whichever individual wrote the project) seem to be really proud of this project - proud in the sense that they like themselves for it - and you can tell by going throug it. Plus, its more content-oriented. There's much more to learn from everything else, so I'm just skipping the project and skimming over it whenever it's time to work on it a little (which isn't a whole lot anyway).

Overall, it's a great book so far (I'm about 1/3 done) and I'd recommend it to anyone who's new to programming and wants to learn it through ActionScript 2.0. Sham has an awesome ability to explain programming to a designer.

Well structured, No boring Jargon and Everything you need in one book........2007-05-13

I am new to actionscript, have watched a few Total Training dvd's, but they don't really go into indepth actionscript. Unless you buy all the dvd's which are expensive.
This book was great. And has given my mind more of an understanding, especially of the process, of programming.
I'm more a graphic designer, who is getting into web design, so if I can go from first page through to the end in 3 weeks and juggle a screaming 2yr old at the same time.....well then anyone can.( I am a stay at home dad!....by the way)
Good to keep for reference. Buy it.

Excellent Beginner ActionScript Guide.......2007-03-19

I was completely foreign to ActionScript before picking up this book. I had previously read one book on understanding the basic flash interface (i.e. using the drawing/tweening tools), but this was my first crack at ActionScript. Getting through this book was very easy. Each chapter is setup in a way that explains a specific topic, runs you through a few examples using what you just learned, and then continues on with an ongoing website project that you develop throughout the book.

Strengths: Writing is clear and concise, and doesn't feel like a programmer wrote the book. The context is a nice mix of theory and hands on practice to keep you interested while your learning some of the more complex topics. The teaching method looks to provide you with skills that you can apply and expand upon quickly, as opposed to just learning some commands and then throwing you out into the wild. The book projects are very well constructed and explained.

Weaknesses: Some of the later chapters advance quickly. I blew through the first 350 pages, but after that had to significantly slow down to fully understand each topic. I also noticed that one or two of the online downloads are missing files for the book project. These are not neccesary if you are writing everything from scratch (correctly), but it did sometimes get in the way of comparing my solutions to the books.

Overall I have been extremely satisfied with this book, and will most likely buy another Foundation guide.

Great Book for Beginner on up ...........2006-12-06

I am a current animation student in California and Flash is one of the tools we are using. While I have developed some proficiency animating in Flash, the scripting tends to turn my brain to mush after a while.

I picked up Foundation Flash 8 to learn some of the basics and have been using Foundation Actionscript for Flash 8 to gradually explore scripting. I am not a programmer but got through the first few chapters easy enough. The second half of the book is somewhat tougher but but filled with interesting chapters -especially the game chapter (chapter 10).

I haven't quite cleared the hurdle of the later chapters, find them more challenging, but I keep the book on my desk to pick at stuff. It is well written and comprehensive. From my perspective as a non-programming 'art head' I'd say it covers beginner to advanced level topics by the end of the book; that's pretty cool because many books seem to be simple rehashings of the product manuals designed to part you from $40-$50 while giving you no new info.

A diamond amongst coal........2006-12-02

As an old UNIX hack I have read quite a few programming manuals, from the original C (Kerninghan & Richie - when it was new!), to the present. Very few, if any, (including the O'Reilly series), have come close to being so informative, easy to read, and enjoyable as the 'ActionScript for Flash 8' book. I consider myself a poor programmer partly because I never found 'print Hello World!' that interesting. In any event, this book has taken me from rank Actionscript beginner to (dare I say it...) semi-advanced! Basically, cannot recommend it highly enough! For me, I enjoy the graphical nature of Actionscript and I am glad I finally found the right book to take me there. I think beginners and experienced Object-Oriented types will get a lot or something from it. Thanks Friends of ED!

Average customer rating:

No codes samples available
Great breakdown on the tool for novices and professionals alike!
Microsoft Visual Studio Unleashed
Full of insightful information
Nice information, puts it all in context...

Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Unleashed
Lars Powers , and Mike Snell
Manufacturer: Sams
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Programming | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Software | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

Professional Visual Studio 2005
Visual Studio 2005 All-In-One Desk Reference For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))
ASP.NET 2.0 Unleashed
Mastering Web Development with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005
Microsoft(R) SQL Server 2005 Unleashed

ASIN: 0672328194

Book Description

Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Unleashed is a deep dive into the Visual Studio 2005 tool. Specifically, it will provide you with solid guidance and education that will allow you to squeeze the ultimate productivity and use out of the Visual Studio 2005 development environment. This book folds in real-world development experience with detailed information about the IDE to make you more productive and ease transition from other development environments (including prior versions of Visual Studio). This book will also help you increase team collaboration and project visibility with Visual Studio Team Systems and it will give you straight, to-the-point answers to common developer questions about the IDE.

Chapters include:

Code Viewers, Explorers, and Browsers
Refactoring Code 8
Writing ASP .NET Applications
Defining Standards and Practices
Introduction to Visual Studio Team System
Work Item Tracking
Unit and Load Testing

Customer Reviews:

No codes samples available.......2007-03-07

An excellent book. Lots of examples. Unfortunately, you will have to type in all the code examples yourself as the Sams Publishing web page does not have any downloads even though the back covers says that they are available.

Great breakdown on the tool for novices and professionals alike!.......2007-02-21

This book did a great job of revealing the breadth of features available in the product. I think this book is quite useful to not only those that are just getting started but those that are seriously considering implementing VS/TFS in the organization. Even if you are an experienced user of Visual Studio you will certainly learn several new tricks. In fact, I reference this book with my clients who are interested in rolling out VS and TFS.

Microsoft Visual Studio Unleashed.......2007-01-10

The book has been a disappointment; it assumes that the reader knows almost everything there is to know about the Visual Studio 2005 program, and the explanations are vague, and far and few in between.
I just wasted valuable money buying this book. I should have checked its contents at the local bookstore first before purchaing it.
This book is poorly written.

Full of insightful information.......2006-12-18

I was very impressed with the content found in this book, there was wide coverage of not only the in's and out's of using the IDE, which is an excellent introduction to any beginner, but also great coverage of Visual Studio Team System and the automation model found within Visual Studio allowing anyone to extend the IDE, which is more in line with an intermediate developer. This book is well suited for the beginning to intermediate developer looking to get up to speed with Visual Studio 2005. Great job Lars and Mike.

Nice information, puts it all in context..........2006-10-08

OK... I can see why Microsoft Visual Studio has been such a popular IDE for developers. Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Unleashed from Lars Powers and Mike Snell does a nice job in explaining the value of the latest version of this classic, as well as being an in-depth guide to the feature set...

Contents:
Part 1 - An Introduction to Visual Studio 2005/.NET: A Quick Tour of Visual Studio 2005; A Quick Tour of the IDE; .NET Framework and Language Enhancements in 2005
Part 2 - The Visual Studio 2005 Environment - In-depth: Solutions and Projects; Browsers and Explorers; Introducing the Editors and Designers; Working with Visual Studio's Productivity Aids; Refactoring Code; Debugging with Visual Studio 2005; The Visual Studio Automation Object Model; Writing Macros, Add-ins, and Wizards; The .NET Community - Consuming and Creating Shared Code
Part 3 - Visual Studio 2005 at Work: Creating ASP.NET User Interfaces; Building Windows Forms; Working with Databases; Web Services and Visual Studio
Part 4 - Visual Studio Team System: Team Collaboration and Visual Studio Team System; Managing and Working with Team Projects; Source Control; Work Item Tracking; Modeling; Testing; Team Foundation Build; Index

For someone like me who isn't a .NET developer, I found Part 1 very useful. The intro and tour gave me a great overview of what the IDE offers, and I could easily relate the different parts to the environment (Eclipse) I'm already familiar with. With that background, I could have easily taken Parts 2 and 3 and become productive in relatively short order. The authors maintain a good blend of text to screenshots to code, so I felt like I was getting a combination of reference and tutorial information in one volume. The argument could be made that all this information can be found in the help files, as is the case with most applications. But it's a lot easier to learn a tool like this (at least for me) when there's a structured guide that puts all the information in context. The Unleashed titles do just that, and this one is no exception...

TextMate: Power Editing for the Mac (Pragmatic Programmers)

Average customer rating:

Do you have the power?
Get a Mac, get TextMate, get this book.
The Power of Textmate
Become A TextMate Power User Today!
Great book on a fantastic product

TextMate: Power Editing for the Mac (Pragmatic Programmers)
James Gray
Manufacturer: Pragmatic Bookshelf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

MacOS | Operating Systems | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Operating Systems | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

Desktop Publishing | Apple | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

Editing | Writing | Reference | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Everyday Scripting with Ruby: For Teams, Testers, and You
Agile Web Development with Rails, 2nd Edition
Ajax on Rails
Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide, Second Edition
The Ruby Way, Second Edition: Solutions and Techniques in Ruby Programming (2nd Edition) (Addison-Wesley Professional Ruby Series)

ASIN: 097873923X

Book Description

TextMate is a powerful tool for programmers, web designers, and anyone else who regularly needs to work with text files on Mac OS X. TextMate focuses on pragmatic automation, which means it will save you time time that's always in short supply. See how your lowly text editor can become a hard working member of your staff.

TextMate is a full-featured text editor available for Mac OS X that can greatly enhance your text manipulation skills. TextMate is actually a thin shell over a personalized team of robot ninjas ready to do your bidding. Let's face it, who doesn't want their very own team of robot ninjas?

With TextMate you can do your normal work, but signal the ever-watchful ninjas as you go. At your command, they will launch into action, slicing through text, building repetitive structures of data in the blink of an eye, and much more. They will even post to your blog, handle your IRC conversations, and read your email.

Inside this book you will learn how to teleport instantly to the exact line of the file you need to be on, edit the data with the briefest incantations of power, and banish the end result to the land of your choosing. It's magic, as you can plainly see.

Leave the days of dull work behind. Learn your spells, gain access to your team of robot ninjas, and you too will be able to edit text so effortlessly that everyone watching over your shoulder will be forced to ask, "Wait, how did you do that?"

Customer Reviews:

Do you have the power?.......2007-09-24

Visuals:
The font size in the Pragmatic Programmers books is a little larger than say the O'Reilly books, which I personally like. Easy on the eyes. Screenshots are clearly printed.

Readability:
I found the reading style conversational and easy to follow. Of course, with this type of book which includes many keyboard short-cuts you really need to be at your computer and using them to commit them to memory. Even a reading of the book will give you insights into the power available at your finger tips with Textmate.

Practicality:
If you spend any amount of time in Textmate, this is really a no-brainer. This book will help you be more productive and get more out of your chosen text editing tool.

Audience:
The book does not list an intended target audience, but if you use Textmate at all I would say you have a bulls-eye right on you.

Overall:
If you use Textmate get this book.

Get a Mac, get TextMate, get this book........2007-08-05

"TextMate is actually a thin shell over a personalized team of robot ninjas ready to do your bidding."

The funny thing is, to people who have never used TextMate for more than a few minutes the above phrase sounds like an exaggeration. It's not. (As long as you can accept the analogy of "really awesome code running on a Mac" = "robot ninjas"...)

Anyway, this book targets a pretty specific market: 1) Humans, 2) who own Macs, 3) and use TextMate. I'm here to tell you that, if you're human you should have a Mac; and if you have a Mac you should buy TextMate; and if you have TextMate you should buy this book. So there, now it covers everyone.

As with all of the Pragmatic Programmer books, I found this book to be concise without missing anything important. You may be thinking, "200 pages about a text editor!? That's crazy talk!" But you would be wrong, my friend. The amount of functionality built into TextMate is incredible, but I didn't even know the half of it until I started reading this book!

I don't want to give away the ending, but:

Three of my favorite simple features I didn't know about until I read this book:
- Pressing [ESC] to complete the word you're typing.
- The built in TODO list functionality (so crucial!!)
- [Cmd-Enter] to add a new line below this one and go to the beginning of it.

Things I wouldn't have been able to do without TextMate and this book:
- Edit some of my Bundles to make TextMate work even more how *I* like
- Complete an after-hours Web Site project *way* under time and budget

Seriously. TextMate is the One True Editor for Mac (it makes me loath using any other editor on any platform) and this is a great book for learning how to *really* take hold of its power.

The Power of Textmate.......2007-05-28

This book is the perfect primer for what I have found to be one of the most indispensible Mac OS X applications - TextMate. If you are a software developer or web designer or anyone else that edits text on a frequent basis and you have not already discovered TextMate, stop right now and visit http://www.macromates.com.

The Pragmatic Programmers' book, TextMate Power Editing for the Mac is a thorough introduction to TextMate. Edward Gray II has written a very accessible book, that covers the product very well.

The first third of the book is devoted to the basics - things you do every day in your text editor. The second third of the book dives into the details of some really sweet features of TextMate that you'll find yourself using all the time: bundles, snippets, macros and UNIX shell commands.

TextMate ships with over thirty 'bundles'. Each bundle is a directory of related files that provide additional functionality to TextMate. Let's say you're working on an HTML file. The HTML bundle will help you with loads of things related to your document: validate the syntax of the document, open the document in the default browser, refresh the document in the current browser session, insert open/close tags for the current word, strip all HTML tags from the document - just to name a few. Each bundle provides functionality that applies not only to the syntax of the language you're currently working with, but repetitive tasks that would apply as well.

As I mentioned, a couple dozen bundles ship with TextMate and many more are available for free download from various websites. You can even create your own bundles to extend the product in ways that only you can imagine. Here are a few of the bundles that ship with TextMate: Blogging, CSS, HTML, Java, Markdown, Objective-C, Python, Rails, Ruby, SQL, Subversion, Text, Textile, Xcode and XML. Bundles provide you with lots of help editing files and performing related tasks.

Snippets are a smart completion mechanism that go way beyond the simple concept of 'finish this word'. For example, if you are editing a Ruby file and you type array_object.ea followed by the TAB key (where 'array_object' is an arbitrary Array object), the snippet feature will automatically fill in the skeleton of the 'each' iterator, including the opening and closing curly braces, the text '|e|' with the letter 'e' highlighted. You simply type the name of the variable you want to represent the next element (or simply leave it as it is), hit the TAB key again and the cursor will be placed between the closing '|' character and the closing '}' character, ready for you to type in an expression. Very cool. This same trick works for dozens of different scenarios in your Ruby code. And that's just the snippets that apply to Ruby code. There are snippets that apply to a large number of file types.

You've probably seen macros in other editors and TextMate's macro facility works as you might expect: you start recording a macro, perform some actions and save the macro. TextMate saves the macros as XML files, so it's a snap to edit a macro after recording if you need to tweak it a bit.

The ability to fire off UNIX shell commands from within TextMate gives you another powerful tool to use while editing files. You can fire off one-liner shell commands by simply pressing the ^R key on a line containing a shell command. You can also use shell commands to act on all or part of the current document.

For the advanced TextMate user, the tail end of the book shows you how to create your own language syntax for use in TextMate, including how to describe the grammar of the language in terms TextMate will understand. So, if you program in some far out funky language that TextMate doesn't support out of the box, you can add the language grammar to TextMate and program away!

Overall, I found this book extremely useful and easy to read. TextMate ships with an excellent help system that will answer many of your questions. The TextMate Power Editing for the Mac book will take you beyond the built-in help and give you an in-depth guide for this great Mac application.

Become A TextMate Power User Today!.......2007-05-25

For anyone that tells you that you can't so solid code and script development on a Mac, they haven't been introduced to the application TextMate. There are several good options for doing power editing on the Macintosh and TextMate is one of those POWER options.

'TextMate: Power Editing for the Mac' by James Gray is a perfect companion manual for all TextMate users that want to lift the hood off of this power app and get to the nuts and bolts. If you develop on a Macintosh on a daily basis for work or fun and want to learn more about what you can do to make your life easier, pick up this book and you won't be disappointed. Written well and coming in at ~200 pages, there are 12 chapters which will teach you goodies in TextMate like how to create and use Macros, using Find & Replace to quickly edit text, and much, much more!!

The Mac is a great tool for developing code and TextMate is a great app for writing it, make yourself a more efficient coder today!!

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Great book on a fantastic product.......2007-05-13

Books on editors are tricky things... I'm (still) a big fan and user of vi, but textmate is my tool of choice for more project level work for its capabilties. This book has brought me closer to to the keyboard level of productivity that vi allows for with its two modes.

Average customer rating:

Disappointed and which I could return it
Informative though somewhat disorganized
Glad I made the purchase!
Excellent Book
Great Book

Foundation PHP for Dreamweaver 8
David Powers
Manufacturer: friends of ED
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Database Design | Databases | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Databases | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Programming | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

Databases | Software | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Software | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

All Deals | Blowout Books | Stores | Books

Computers & Internet | Blowout Books | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

PHP Solutions: Dynamic Web Design Made Easy (Solutions)
Dreamweaver 8: The Missing Manual
Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 with ASP, ColdFusion, and PHP: Training from the Source
Foundation PHP 5 for Flash (Foundation)
Beginning PHP and MySQL 5: From Novice to Professional, Second Edition

Accessories:

Workflow in the 2007 Microsoft Office System
Pro C# with .NET 3.0, Special Edition (Pro)
Microsoft SharePoint: Building Office 2007 Solutions in C# 2005 (Expert's Voice in Sharepoint)

ASIN: 1590595696

Book Description

In this book, youll learn how to:

Install, configure, and troubleshoot a testing environment with PHP/MySQL and Apache or IIS
Learn the fundamentals of PHP and good database design
Use Dreamweaver 8 server behaviors to create robust dynamic applications that validate user input for greater security and reliability
Incorporate live XML feeds into your web pages with PHP and Dreamweaver 8s new XSL Transformation server behavior
Download and apply a suite of custom-built PHP functions designed exclusively for this book

Want to add the power of a database to your websites? Build online forms that send feedback straight to your inbox? Incorporate live news feeds and XML data into your web pages? This book shows you how to do all that and more. Dreamweaver 8 takes a lot of the hard work out of integrating a database into your websites, but it cant do everything. So instead of just giving you a series of instructions to click this and click that, this book helps you understand whats going on in the background. As a result, youre more likely to remember and to get it right. Most books on PHP concentrate on code and throw all design considerations out the window. This one is different. It makes use of Dreamweaver 8s vastly improved CSS rendering, and shows you how to build a site thats smart in both senses of the word. It looks good and is intelligent too. Youll learn how to change the entire look of the site, using PHP to serve up different stylesheets each month. Youll also build a contact form protected against email injection attacks. All of Dreamweavers PHP server behaviors are put through their paces, and youll even make some custom server behaviors that will come in useful on any site you create. Two chapters take you through the setup process with step-by-step instructions for both Windows and Mac OS X, helping you make the right choices: Apache or IIS? Remote or local testing? There are even instructions on how to set up virtual hosts on your own computer. And in the unlikely event that things go wrong, theres plenty of troubleshooting advice too. In this book we look specifically at using Dreamweaver's built-in server behaviors to build dynamic web sites using PHP and MySQL, the worlds most popular open source server-side language and database server combination, which are both reliable, powerful, and open source (and therefore free to use!) This latest version of Dreamweaver includes more powerful support for PHP and MySQL than ever before, and we'll show you how to make this work for you. No previous experience of PHP or MySQL is necessary to use this book. Examples built throughout the book include a content management system, and an online image gallery. All examples are designed to meet modern usability requirements and be web standards compliant. Summary of Contents:

Introduction
Chapter 1: So, You Want to Build Dynamic Sites?
Chapter 2: Dreamweaver and PHPA Productive Partnership
Chapter 3: Getting the Work Environment Ready
Chapter 4: Getting Ready for the Case Study
Chapter 5: Integrating PHP into Your Site
Chapter 6: Getting Feedback from an Online Form
Chapter 7: Putting the Power of a Database
Chapter 8: Building a Random Quotation Generator
Chapter 9: Working with Multiple Tables
Chapter 10: Using Sessions to Track
Chapter 11: Displaying a Blog and Photo Gallery
Chapter 12: Using XSLT to Display Live News Feeds and XML
Appendix A: Using Languages Other Than English in MySQL
Appendix B: Essential MySQL Maintenance
Index

Customer Reviews:

Disappointed and which I could return it.......2007-09-26

This man makes a promise of a written format that can be followed. The writtng is NOT CLEAR and leaves much to the readers imagination of to what exactly the format should be. There is no CD so that you can see how the step by step process works. He names his files but does not show the real differences between how he is set up and how you can set up to fit your needs. I waisted my money. He claims in the book there is support which at best is terrible.

The worst book I have ever bought on coding. If I were you try another writter.

Informative though somewhat disorganized.......2007-09-19

This is a good book. It teaches many useful techniques and how lots of "how to" ideas. However, the faux site that is created isn't goal oriented which left me feeling like the book was just a collection of random things to do. It seemed disorganized at times when you would or wouldn't create another page from scratch vs. revamping one you had already made. It was not always clear why you would be better to take one approach vs. the other. Setting up the localhost environment was somewhat confusing, though not too bad.

I will definitely use it frequently. Good information, good book, good deal.

Glad I made the purchase!.......2007-08-07

After skimming the book, and reading several chapters, I cannot wait to sit down with Dreamweaver 8 and really put the clearly written book to use. I believe it and PHP Solutions: Dynamic Web Design Made Easy (Solutions) by David Powers will compliment each other.

Excellent Book.......2007-07-26

Very well written. Easy to understand with clear instructions and good hands on training examples. This book is an excellent resource for beginners and intermediate level. The author makes a really good job explaining PHP concepts.

Great Book.......2007-07-06

As a real world computer geek. I've been using Dreamweaver for many years but I never used it's dynamic deveolpment features until after getting this book.

I found this book very helpful in not only learning how to use Dreamweaver's Dynamic PHP/MySQL programming features, but it takes you by the hand in setting up your Computer as a Web Server and installing all the services like Apache, PHP and MySQL to use with the Dreamweaver 8 program. The author has a gift for teaching.

I was about three quarters of the way through the book when I recieved a Web Development project that needed the very features that this book taught. I actually got more than my money back from this book before I finished reading it. I found it very user friendly when it came to working through the projects.

The only other thing I can say is that I will be keeping this book close where I can find it for future reference.

Excel 2003 Power Programming with VBA (Excel Power Programming With Vba)

Average customer rating:

Fundamentals to Advanced Excel VBA - a great book
Jelen & Walkenbach
Best Excel 2003 book
Utterly thorough reference guide
Great Book

Excel 2003 Power Programming with VBA (Excel Power Programming With Vba)
John Walkenbach
Manufacturer: For Dummies
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Software | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

All Amazon Upgrade | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books

Computers & Internet | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Excel 2003 Formulas
Professional Excel Development: The Definitive Guide to Developing Applications Using Microsoft(R) Excel and VBA(R) (The Addison-Wesley Microsoft Technology Series)
Excel VBA Programming For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))
Excel 2003 Bible
John Walkenbach's Favorite Excel Tips & Tricks

Accessories:

Excel PivotTables and Charts (Mr Spreadsheet)
Excel Advanced Report Development
Excel 2003 VBA Programmer's Reference (Programmer to Programmer)

ASIN: 0764540726

Book Description

"Today, no accomplished Excel programmer can afford to be without John's book. The value of Excel 2003 Power Programming with VBA is double most other books-simultaneously the premier reference and best learning tool for Excel VBA."
—Loren Abdulezer, Author of Excel Best Practices for Business

Everything you need to know about:

Creating stellar UserForms and custom dialog box alternatives
Working with VBA subprocedures and function procedures
Incorporating event-handling and interactions with other applications
Building user-friendly toolbars, menus, and help systems
Manipulating files and Visual BasicÂ® components
Understanding class modules
Managing compatibility issues

Feel the power of VBA and Excel

No one can uncover Excel's hidden capabilities like "Mr. Spreadsheet" himself. John Walkenbach begins this power user's guide with a conceptual overview, an analysis of Excel application development, and a complete introduction to VBA. Then, he shows you how to customize Excel UserForms, develop new utilities, use VBA with charts and pivot tables, create event-handling applications, and much more. If you're fairly new to Excel programming, here's the foundation you need. If you're already a VBA veteran, you can start mining a rich lode of programming ideas right away.

CD-ROM Includes

Trial version of the author's award-winning Power Utility Pak
Over one hundred example Excel workbooks from the book

System Requirements: PC running WindowsÂ® 2000 SP3 or later, or Windows XPâ¢ or later. Microsoft Excel 2003. See the "What's on the CD" Appendix for details and complete system requirements.

Customer Reviews:

Fundamentals to Advanced Excel VBA - a great book.......2007-10-09

This is a great book. I've been programming in Excel VBA since about 1997. I've never had a formal class on writing Visual Basic or VBA code so I've always scratched through on my own flipping back and forth through Visual Basic books and searching through the index like crazy to find out what I needed. Programming in VBA started out as a hobby for me. Most books just state Visual Basic info and don't go into much detail. Walkenbach does a great job, especially for beginners that already have a little bit of experience with VBA. He starts out with the fundamentals and builds on them and gives plenty of example code. This helps give the reader a good grasp of how Excel's VBA environment truly works and it totally changed my perspective as far as how I program. Visual Basic books don't specifically target on Excel like this book does and VB is not necessarily exactly the same as VBA.

If you're just starting to learn VBA for Excel, then this book is worth every penny you pay and more. I have about 4 other books on VBA and I'd trade about all of them in for this one book. I definitely recommend reading about turning the automatic updating off and I think most beginners will find Chapter 11 regarding working with ranges EXTREMELY useful, especially the portion about transferring the data to a variant array for computation then back to the range for much faster macro speeds.

If you are starting out in Excel VBA, I definitely recommend this be the first book that you read.

Jelen & Walkenbach.......2007-09-30

This book plus Bill Jelen's "VBA and Macros for Microsoft Excel (Business Solutions)" makes for a complete volume on this subject. Walkenbach's book alone is not enough. Take it to the next level with Bullen/Bovey/Green's "Professional Excel Development."

Best Excel 2003 book.......2007-07-03

Best ever book on Excel 2003. Mr. Walkenbach clearly is THE guru of Excel. Until I wanted to learn VBA, I never paid much attention to Excel books. Since then I've done a lot of reading and this is by far the best, not just about VBA, but all aspects of Excel. Even reading about things I thought I knew a lot about was helpful and revealing. His writing is clear, witty, simple and to the point. I hold the user manual for cpm's SuperCalc as the gold standard of software manual clarity - even though this is ten times bigger, it's just as good. Well done. Highly recommended - thank you Mr. Walkenbach.

Utterly thorough reference guide.......2007-05-17

Thorough and clear reference guide. Highly recommended for anyone using (or wanting to use) VBA to automate or "slick-up" excel applications.

Great Book.......2007-02-10

Excelent book to learn the capabilities of Excel VBA. I learnt VBA by viewing online examples and worked my way up to developing a small purchase system, which connects to databases. This book has taught me with good examples a way to better organize my code, and find new ways to do certain tasks.
I would definitely recomend this book to begginers and intermediate users to learn in a clean and simple way. I dont consider myself and advanced user, so don't know what kind of books these people use, but I am sure they would give it a thumbs up.

How to Say It For Women: Communicating with Confidence and Power Using the Language of Success

Average customer rating:

What every woman should know!
Review by the Business Librarians of the Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh
Not Helpful
Great basis for coursework
A valuable resource for aspiring women leaders

How to Say It For Women: Communicating with Confidence and Power Using the Language of Success
Phyllis Mindell
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Women & Business | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Communications | Skills | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Running Meetings & Presentations | Skills | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Business Life | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Women's Studies | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Communication | Words & Language | Reference | Subjects | Books

Public Speaking | Words & Language | Reference | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office: 101 Unconscious Mistakes Women Make That Sabotage Their Careers
Play Like a Man, Win Like a Woman: What Men Know About Success that Women Need to Learn
A Woman's Guide to Successful Negotiating: How to Convince, Collaborate, & Create Your Way to Agreement
The Girl's Guide to Being a Boss (Without Being a Bitch): Valuable Lessons, Smart Suggestions, and True Stories for Succeeding as the Chick-in-Charge
Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead... But Gutsy Girls Do: Nine Secrets Every Working Woman Must Know

ASIN: 0735202222
Release Date: 2001-01-02

Book Description

Phyllis Mindell, an acclaimed expert on professional communications, shows women how to transform themselves by transforming their language; shed weak words, phrases, and gestures; empower themselves to win attention and respect; and get their ideas across with confidence and power.

Perhaps the best teacher of how the power of language can transform is an unexpected one: Charlotte the spider of E.B. White's, Charlotte's Web. Mindell demonstrates how Charlotte communicated messages that gained national attention and saved a friend's life. As a model, she combines female strengths of wisdom and compassion with the determination and power to make a difference.

As part of Prentice Hall Press's highly successful How to Say It tm series, How to Say It tm for Women is packed with practical tips, techniques, and examples that arm women to grapple with every communication issue, from choosing the right word or sentence to speaking, reading, writing, leading, dressing, and interviewing effectively. Readers will learn how to: shun words that weaken messages and make women invisible; sail through interviews; assess and develop leadership skills; say NO, kindly but firmly; respond appropriately to slurs, insults, and harassment; say the one winning word that gets people to follow directions.

True stories about women in every field, along with quotes from Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Carla Hills, Amelia Earhart, Elizabeth Dole and others, enable women to tap the power of words to persuade, motivate, establish authority, and make a difference-- without sacrificing their integrity, their compassion, or their femininity.

Customer Reviews:

What every woman should know!.......2006-03-09

I read about this book - actually, I consider it a textbook - when searching for tools on expanding my career. I usually wouldn't buy something like this, and instead look for similar information from free 'Net sources. But on a whim, I bought it, and am so glad I did. I'm not even halfway through and what I've learned already has helped me to speak and express myself in a way that gets people's attention, and has improved my professional image. One of the best tips, which comes early in the book, is catching myself using the "I think/like/don't like" phrase when I want to discuss facts. I do it, so I don't look like a know-it-all. Dr. Mindell, however, shows several ways to express facts without appearing as though I have all the answers.

The author also cites common grammar and language mistakes that keep women in the background, and prevent us from asserting our strengths and skills. The concept of Weak Language is especially intriguing; in reviewing the examples, I saw myself in almost every one. Her solutions are very attainable, but she strongly recommends practicing this new language with another woman. I have, and my women friends were amazed at how powerful this "new" language sounds.

These are hard habits to break, but with the tips and examples in this book, I'm getting better at it. And I can see the difference in how others treat me; more importantly, I feel different about myself. The book is really a life-changing experience, for someone who has never really put much thought into my "image" but is continually frustrated at not getting the positive attention for my work success as I believe I deserve. Thank you Dr. Mindell!

Review by the Business Librarians of the Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh.......2005-07-17

The lights go down. The speaker strides confidently towards the podium, pauses and makes eye contact with the audience. And from the very first moment you know, instinctively, that it's going to be an excellent presentation. An experience like this reinforces your desire to create your own unique aura of self-confidence. What can you do to make this happen?

One thing you can do, right away, is to get a copy of Dr. Phyllis Mindell's book, How to Say It for Executives: The Complete Guide to Communication for Leaders. It's an excellent guide for acquiring and practicing the communication skills you'll need to get ahead and stay there, complete with exercises, charts, lists, examples, and a simple format that makes it all easy to digest.

Primary among those skills is something obvious but often overlooked: listening. When you pay close attention when others are talking, instead of interrupting or jumping to conclusions without hearing the entire story, it will be noticed and appreciated. Of course, a favorite chapter for us here at the library is "Reading Like a Leader," in which the author doesn't tell what to read, but rather how to read - both speedily and deeply - in ways that will build skills in analysis, synthesis, and argument. A chapter on nonverbal leadership breaks down the powerful code spoken by gesture, dress, and body placement.

Preparing a presentation is the centerpiece of How To Say It For Executives, and Dr. Mindell meticulously lays out each step of the process. Before you begin, gather some information about the audience. The speech should be written out, using an absolute minimum of sentences that begin with "I", and rehearsed. The most objective way to find out how you really look and sound in front of an audience is to videotape the speech. After viewing it, turn off the sound and watch it again. Now that you know where improvement is needed, complete the assignments in each chapter that target problems commonly faced by public speakers.

You never know when hostile or difficult people will be in the audience. One individual can spoil an entire presentation by monopolizing the floor or asking inappropriate questions. The author offers several techniques for tactfully handling a variety of problems and disruptions that can occur in an open forum.

Perhaps the most valuable lesson in How to Say It for Executives is this: Make a concerted effort to stop using weak words like "I feel", "sort of", "I guess" and "I think" in everyday conversations as well as presentations. Instead of coming across as tentative and unsure, practice substituting phrases that will make your sentences strong and persuasive. Although the advice in this book is directed primarily to those in leadership positions, anyone but a hermit will find life is made much easier by becoming a better communicator

Not Helpful.......2005-04-25

I bought this book at a womens' leadership conference a couple of years ago. I read it cover-to-cover and decided to try the skills covered when communicating in my office. My supervisors' opinions of me changed drastically - they began to view me as surly and defiant. I didn't think any of the verbage alternatives were rude, but in the organization where I was working, the higher-ups expected you to consider them omnipotent and not have an opinion of your own. Ultimately one should consider their audience and adjust their language accordingly.

Great basis for coursework.......2005-04-05

I am using this book as a reference for my students in a business english course in Japan. Although the students find reading it cover to cover a bit too much (lower intermediate English level) when I point out specific points and pages I want them to read and understand, they really get a lot out of it. The book is written well and ideas are developed and backed up clearly. I would recommend this to any teachers of women students.

A valuable resource for aspiring women leaders.......2004-07-30

I can't recommend this book highly enough. As a leadership coach in Silicon valley I often help women managers and executives to become better leaders, and this book speaks directly to two of the biggest roadblocks to women's advancement: communication and confidence. These women are shocked at how closely Mindell understands their work challenges. The book takes highly volatile, challenging workplace situations and offers suggestions that immediately actionable.

PHP Solutions: Dynamic Web Design Made Easy (Solutions)

Average customer rating:

Absolutely the best PHP book I've used
Not for beginners
Looks Good!
Brilliant... definately worth buying
Not exactly "easy" but easier than anything else I've tried so far.

PHP Solutions: Dynamic Web Design Made Easy (Solutions)
David Powers
Manufacturer: friends of ED
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Programming | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Software | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Foundation PHP for Dreamweaver 8
CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions
Bulletproof Ajax
Web Standards Creativity: Innovations in Web Design with XHTML, CSS, and DOM Scripting
PHP 5 Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach

Accessories:

Workflow in the 2007 Microsoft Office System
Pro C# with .NET 3.0, Special Edition (Pro)
Microsoft SharePoint: Building Office 2007 Solutions in C# 2005 (Expert's Voice in Sharepoint)

ASIN: 1590597311

Book Description

In this book you'll learn how to:

Create dynamic websites with design and usability in mind, as well as functionality
Understand how PHP scripts work, giving you confidence to adapt them to your own needs
Bring online forms to life, check required fields, and ensure user input is safe to process
Upload files and automatically create thumbnails from larger images
Manage website content with a searchable database

You want to make your websites more dynamic by adding a feedback form, creating a private area where members can upload images that are automatically resized, or perhaps storing all your content in a database. The problem is, you're not a programmer and the thought of writing code sends a chill up your spine. Or maybe you've dabbled a bit in PHP and MySQL, but you can't get past baby steps. If this describes you, then you've just found the right book. PHP and the MySQL database are deservedly the most popular combination for creating dynamic websites. They're free, easy to use, and provided by many web hosting companies in their standard packages. Unfortunately, most PHP books either expect you to be an expert already or force you to go through endless exercises of little practical value. In contrast, this book gives you real value right away through a series of practical examples that you can incorporate directly into your sites, optimizing performance and adding functionality such as file uploading, email feedback forms, image galleries, content management systems, and much more. Each solution is created with not only functionality in mind, but also visual design. But this book doesn't just provide a collection of ready-made scripts: each PHP Solution builds on what's gone before, teaching you the basics of PHP and database design quickly and painlessly. By the end of the book, you'll have the confidence to start writing your own scripts or&8212;if you prefer to leave that task to othersto adapt existing scripts to your own requirements. Right from the start, you're shown how easy it is to protect your sites by adopting secure coding practices. The book has been written with an eye on forward and backward compatibilityrecommending the latest PHP 5 techniques, but providing alternative solutions for servers still running PHP 4.3. All database examples demonstrate how to use the original MySQL extension, MySQL Improved, or the PHP Data Objects (PDO) introduced in PHP 5.1, letting you choose the most suitable option for your setup. Summary of Contents:

Chapter 1: What Is PHPAnd Why Should I Care?
Chapter 2: Getting Ready to Work with PHP
Chapter 3: How to Write PHP Scripts
Chapter 4: Lightening Your Workload with Includes
Chapter 5: Bringing Forms to Life
Chapter 6: Uploading Files
Chapter 7: Using PHP to Manage Files
Chapter 8: Generating Thumbnail Images
Chapter 9: Pages That Remember: Simple Login and Multipage Forms
Chapter 10: Setting Up MySQL and phpMyAdmin
Chapter 11: Getting Started with a Database
Chapter 12: Creating a Dynamic Online Gallery
Chapter 13: Managing Content
Chapter 14: Solutions to Common PHP/MySQL Problems
Chapter 15: Keeping Intruders at Bay

Customer Reviews:

Absolutely the best PHP book I've used.......2007-10-03

Thanks David!!

This is by far the best PHP book I've purchased. PHP and MySQL are much easier to understand then ASP and SQL Server. This is coming form someone that learned ASP and MSSQL first.

Regards!
Rich

Not for beginners.......2007-09-24

If you're looking for a book to learn php, this one's not the one. The author is relying heavily on the reader's mind-reading abilities figuring out what to do. This book requires lots of head scratching, note taking, and is very frustrating to follow. It contains far too many mistakes and typos to have been released. It seems the buyer is the proof reader. Several times I have thought I had made a mistake only to find that it was yet another mistyped line/word/phrase in the book. The download files given to compare the work to are not the same as the ones created if you're following the chapters. Maybe it's good for experienced programmers, but if I were experienced with php, would I need the book? I guess software/programming books are much like software itself: authors and developers release it and rely on the buyers to find the mistakes and fix them after it has been sold. Only with a book you're stuck wit hit. The corrections mentioned on the publisher's website for this book contain errors, too. So don't rely on them to be correct!

Looks Good!.......2007-08-07

After skimming the book, and reading several chapters, I cannot wait to sit down with Dreamweaver 8 and really put the clearly written book to use. I believe it and Foundation PHP for Dreamweaver 8 by David Powers will compliment each other.

Brilliant... definately worth buying.......2007-07-10

I am pretty new to PHP, with not a great deal of coding experience. Over the last year I have bought 4 books, each which have been hailed as 'The best book for learning PHP.' Sadly, these books have been too dry or detailed for me to follow as a beginner, so most of my learning has come from online tutorials.

This book however is quite different... David Powers gives good practical applications, and goes through the steps of coding them, explaining why and how along the way.. so it becomes a much more interesting and interactive learning experience. This is a great book, a big thumbs up to David Powers.

Not exactly "easy" but easier than anything else I've tried so far........2007-06-16

I was probably about two books shy of giving up on ever learning anything useful about PHP so I'm thrilled to have discovered this book when I did!

I'm not a programmer by any stretch of the imagination but I know HTML, a fair amount of CSS, and I have a cursory understanding of how programming works. I've also successfully (but not often painlessly) installed and customized several ready-made PHP scripts so I've long been aware of how much more PHP could help me accomplish if I only had a better understanding of it.

I purchased several books on the subject over the years but could never get much past the first few chapters with any of them -- usually not even that much. Among my biggest problems was that it seemed I wasn't getting enough doses of practical information to stay motivated. This also made it difficult to be aware of any progress I might be making -- or if I even was. Sometimes the information didn't build up logically enough for me so it was harder to retain anything I might have learned. Often, even when a book claimed to be for beginners, in some areas it used jargon or presumed I knew things I didn't know at all while becoming excruciatingly basic in other areas. It was a constant struggle with little or no reward.

But none of this was the case with PHP SOLUTIONS.

I've been methodically reading just a few pages (rarely more) every night so as not to overload my circuits which were already weakened from so much frustration. The information is authoritative but the writing style is approachable, both of which made it so much easier for me to persevere. I also didn't allow myself to get too bogged down or frustrated: if there was something I wasn't getting, even after a few passes, I moved on with the hopes it would make more sense later, and it usually did. But I feel as though I'm at least grasping the majority of what's been presented. Although I have not been following along and performing the exercises as recommended (just reading and studying), I still sense definite progress and comprehension that I never felt with any of the other books. Once I decide on something I want to incorporate into a web site, I will revisit those chapters more thoroughly. This probably wouldn't work for most people, but it usually works best for me.

At any rate, I'm nearly half way through the book now and still eager to continue. That's enough to convince me. I can't say I expect to ever be able to write my own scripts from scratch (unless they're very simple), but if I'm at least able to find my way around many existing scripts (surely the ones covered in this book) and customize them for my own needs, it will be HUGE. And I CAN say I feel confident I'll be able to achieve at least that much, which I know will serve my needs and is much more than I expected after all the false starts and frustrations I've been through and how close I came to quitting.

Average customer rating:

This book is worth every penny
No real life examples
Excelent manual for intermediate and higher programmers!
Bravo!
Excellent reference book for non-programmers

Excel 2002 Power Programming with VBA
John Walkenbach
Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Spreadsheets | Microsoft | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Software | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

All Amazon Upgrade | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books

Computers & Internet | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Microsoft Excel 2002 Formulas (With CD-ROM)
Microsoft Excel 2002 Visual Basic for Applications Step by Step (Step by Step (Microsoft))
Excel 2002 VBA: Programmers Reference
Excel 2002 Bible
Professional Excel Development: The Definitive Guide to Developing Applications Using Microsoft(R) Excel and VBA(R) (The Addison-Wesley Microsoft Technology Series)

ASIN: 0764547992

Book Description

Get the most out of Excel, Microsoft's powerful spreadsheet application. With John Walkenbach, the leading Excel expert better known as "Mr. Spreadsheet", discover better ways to analyze data and find solutions using Microsoft Excel 2002.

This book is an excellent resource for getting up to speed using streamlined spreadsheet creation tools, enhanced analysis tools and powerful Web integration. Transform Excel into an application suited to the whole organization so workgroups can work more effectively. Discover how developers can integrate information seamlessly, whether proposal text, financial figures or research data. Whether you are an expert or a novice, Excel 2002 Power Programming with VBA will help you work more efficiently, turning your data into answers you can count on.

Bonus: The book contains a coupon for the Professional Power Utility Pak.

Customer Reviews:

This book is worth every penny.......2005-11-10

This book is oriented for those with basic knowledges of Excel and some general understanding of Visual Basic (Visual Basic 6 not Visual Basic .NET). However, the examples are simple, sequential and conductive for constructing basic applications even if you have never used Visual Basic before.

Let the Author, Mr. John Walkenback, take you through the first 7 Chapters, type in the examples as you go, and you will rip the benefits.

No real life examples.......2004-04-01

This book sucks! Its just a little better than the help file included in with Excel. All he does is put it in a diffrent order. I was expecting small excercises where I could put my new skills all together, but there is none. So you read the whole book, remember as much as you can, and go off and try to mix and match hundreds of commands... buy another one.

Excelent manual for intermediate and higher programmers!.......2004-02-20

This is a great manual for those who, at a minimum, have a limited knowledge of Visual Basic and a limited working knowledge of Excel. If you don't consider yourself an expert then this is the book for you!

I've taught myself multiple computer languages (English is my natural language but that doesn't really matter now, does it?) and am very familiar with Excel -- but not so much on the programming side of things. As far as being a VB programmer, well, about two or three years ago I taught myself VB 5.0 and then never ended up needing to use it. The first time I used this book was to help me with a VB module in a customers Excel workbook. There was even an example in this book about using the Windows API to get the window to search for a directory which I was able to easily incorporate into the code. I then started reading through the chapters and just kept on learning more and more! When working on a project I can easily find a relevant chapter/section that pertains to what I'm doing or need and solve my problem!

He clearly explains his code and if the example is a code snipet. The included CD contains his examples and other files which I find very helpful, especially when I don't want to type in everything myself :-)

If you even *think* this may be a candidate for your library then stop thinking and just get it!

Bravo!.......2004-02-07

Outstanding reference and how to manual for Excel macro programming. A must have for anyone who has ambitions of writing their own programs for Excel. John's clear, organized, and comprehensible writing style allows even a novice programmer to immediately begin to write Excel macros that really do something, and do something useful. His book is chock full of useful code examples. Get two copies. It is that good.

Excellent reference book for non-programmers.......2003-10-15

This book can be included in the handy tool category, a "must have" for non-programmers who want to give their Excel applications a professional look as well as get the most out of Excel without wasting much time and effort. Word of caution, a bit of familiarity with visual basic as a language and the controls etc. will be very helpful in using this book. Codes in the CD are very helpful. It is written by a practicing professional from usage point of view hence a very easy reading book and not heavy on the jargons of object oriented programming etc. I learned a lot of useful tricks after going through the book.

Microsoft Outlook Programming, Jumpstart for Administrators, Developers, and Power Users

Average customer rating:

The "go to" book for Outlook programming and scripting
Detailed enough for my VBA level
Better than nothing
The best Outlook programming book that I know
Very useful book

Microsoft Outlook Programming, Jumpstart for Administrators, Developers, and Power Users
Sue Mosher
Manufacturer: Digital Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Programming | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

E-mail | Software | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Software | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

Scheduling & E-mail | Microsoft | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

All Amazon Upgrade | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books

Computers & Internet | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Programming Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Exchange 2003, Third Edition
Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003
Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 Inside Out
Building Applications with Microsoft Outlook Version 2002 (With CD-ROM)
Microsoft Outlook 2000 Programming Bible

ASIN: 1555582869

Book Description

Microsoft Outlook Programming unleashes the power of Microsoft Outlook, allowing administrators and end users to customize Outlook in the same way that they've used macros and templates to customize other programs like Excel and Word. Experienced developers will find the quick-start information they need to begin integrating Outlook into their applications. Microsoft Exchange administrators will get help automating common tasks such as announcing public folders and importing data to custom forms.

Microsoft Outlook is the most widely used email program, and it offers the most programmability. This book introduces key concepts for programming both Outlook forms for storing and exchanging data and Visual Basic for Applications modules that add new features to Outlook. Central to this new edition, which covers both Outlook 2000 and Outlook 2002, is awareness of tighter security in Outlook. Designed to prevent transmission of computer viruses, the security restrictions can also get in the way of legitimate programs, but this book offers workarounds within the reach of novice programmers. It also covers many of the new features of Outlook 2002, such as the integrated Outlook View Control and searching across multiple folders using SQL syntax and the Search object.

· Building block procedures for the most common Outlook programming tasks
· Jargon-free language and practical examples to make the material more accessible to new Outlook programmers
· Coverage of Outlook Email Security Update
· Coverage of the Office XP Web Services Toolkit

Customer Reviews:

The "go to" book for Outlook programming and scripting.......2007-07-29

Sue Mosher has long been considered an industry expert in Microsoft Outlook. In this volume she continues her endless giving to the Outlook community by sharing much of her expertise in the area of writing code in VBA and VBScipt that interacts with the product on various levels. Plenty of code samples and brilliant explanations of concepts make this a must read for anyone considering any Outlook programming, whether serious or casual.

Detailed enough for my VBA level.......2007-03-17

Good examples for medium VBA level. The first part is for beginners, so someone can be disappointed , but going on I found a lot of things I didn't know. Lots of images. Maybe I prefered a CD with a little more code. I notice I can't give 5 stars because I've had some problems with English language, that's not my language, so I can't say it's a simple book, but it's my fault.

Better than nothing.......2006-12-08

Better than nothing, December 8, 2006
Reviewer: Richard C. H. Freytag (Northern Virginia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
Look the book has a good index - I know because I have had to use it a lot because the author REGULARLY USES TERMS BEFORE DEFINING THEM which I hate! In fact terms are not really defined well at all leaving the user wandering like a blind man trying to understand an elephant by touch. Here you learn about one object.method, there another object.method or property but no understanding of the overall hierarchy is given. Sadly this is typical in manuals that attempt to explain a framework of objects, properties, and methods. But my money and time deserve better than this.

Pointing people to the online object browser is not good enough - that gives none of the "why" behind the object hierachy which is the real value behind its design (there is a "why" isn't there Microsoft?). For a good example of how to do this for Outlook take a look at Martin Green's excellent free online Oulook case-study: [...]. Notice how he defines objects - that is the right way to teach.

Also the editing is lacking; here is a typical example from Ch10.3 - 'Among the useful things you can do with CDO are delete an Outlook item permanently, rather than send it to the Deleted Items folder, and open a Select Names dialog, asking the user to choose recipients. You will look at the first task in this chapter and then work with the Select Names dialog in Chapter 14, "Working with Items and Recipients," after you become familiar with recipient concepts. CDO can also expose many more properties of individual items and folders than Outlook can, making it possible to perform tasks that otherwise seem impossible."

1. Note the attention-deficit-inducing use of comma-separated phrases in the first sentence. It is typical, and obfuscatory.

2. That first sentence also just tells you about two things you can do with CDO objects - two of many. Instead give the "why" of the object and then outline the few key methods, then use the method. Its worked for decades for every serious educational and technical text. Leave the stream-of-conciousness form to the auteurs of the liberal arts where they can do no harm.

3. Sentence two in the above quote predicts what you will do; I assure you this is as weird as it reads appearing completely out of the blue. Just a prediction with no preamble, reasoning, or, indeed, information.

4. Sentence three in the above quote says something "seems impossible." What that impossible thing is is never explained nor how or why it seems impossible.

There is a lot of good material hidden in this book between acres of verbiage. At least there is a good index - that is a real plus. And the author is generous online with help which is why I bought the book - got to respect someone that puts in the hours to help others.

The best Outlook programming book that I know.......2006-11-13

I have not given 5 stars because it is not perfect. One complain is that the first part is too easy and is aimed for total beginners and then there is the second part where a lot of material is presented too fast. I wished that the book spent less time with very basic (pun intended) VBA stuff but takes more time to make the transition to more advanced topics smoother.

Other than that, the book contains a lot of code that can easily be reused.

Very useful book.......2006-03-07

I consult it regularly when I need to do something with Outlook VBA. Its clear, intelligently written, and comprehensive.

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books